


hope

by ddeiSmile



Series: a song for the wolf [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sansa centered, mentions of jonsa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 13:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11784087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddeiSmile/pseuds/ddeiSmile
Summary: “I have the body of a woman, but the scars of a man. I will not be wed to some lord so he can cast me aside in my own home. Not again.”





	hope

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my mother tongue so forgive any mistakes and also, please, feel free to point them out to me so that I can fix it. I didn't read it after writing it, so there's without doubt a bunch of mistakes: grammar, verb tenses incongruity and other things.

She remembers the sting in her knees as she begged mercy for his father, the sweet and concerned voice of Cersei asking if she had some business for the king and the council had given her the courage, for she had trusted her as a mother even in that moment. She remembers too the hope she felt when Joffrey had silenced maestre Pycelle because he wanted to hear what she had to say. Sansa had been stupid. _A stupid little girl with her stupid dreams_.

She had screamed with all her might as they pushed his father to his fatal end, wanting desperately the nightmare to end. _No, stop it, stop, please_. She had closed her eyes when the sword was lifted, but never stopped begging; even after it, as she had laid in her room, alone, crying herself to sleep, she didn’t stop, she begged to the gods, the old and the new ones, to please, _please_ , make the pain stop. Morning came eventually, she was still alive as her father was not; she had looked through the window and felt terribly alone, scared and broken.

 _How long do I have to look_ , she had asked Joffrey. He then made his guard hit her, both cheeks, with such a force that left her jaw aching throughout the day; but she didn’t cry, not in front of him. Only hatred was left for Joffrey―for everything he was and his mother and this filthy land. She wanted him dead. She had walked the steps in his direction, feeling nothing but the need to kill him, thinking about nothing else. It had been Ser Clegane who stopped her, who perhaps had saved a piece of her. She learned to lie in order to survive because she was not brave enough to kill another human being or herself.

She had thought repeatedly that she should have done it, killed herself, as they torn apart her dress, the pain in her stomach long forgotten. Unfortunately, it is human instinct to do the contrary: they yearn for survival, so she just cried, seeking forgiveness. She had been weak as Joffrey _punished_ her for Robb’s rebellion and that’s something she still finds hard to forgive herself for.

She remembers watching as Myrcella was taken away. She felt sorry for her because she knew what it felt to be away from home, but somehow she had been thrilled with the knowledge that Cersei was suffering. The queen hadn’t shown much, her face always a façade of pride and mighty, but her eyes had glistened with sorrow and longing. Sansa had been happy for Cersei’s pain and even then something twisted inside of her: a reprimand.

The feeling hadn’t last. She remembers the terror she felt as she ran away from those monsters, the people of King's Landing and its starving rage because of Joffrey’s war. The strike to her cheek that bugler gave her hadn’t hurt enough because all she had feared was the disgrace it would come to her, how terrible was her weakness as she fell to the floor. Then she had seen them, men laughing, holding each of her legs as one of them stripped, readying himself to rape her. They didn’t, not physically, The Hound had saved her from that, but they did something to her soul that she would never recover.

She had felt the same terror as the sun rays crept into her nightmares and she learned she was a woman, able to bear Joffrey’s children. She had been sure that if the time should come, it would kill her and never before had she dread even more being a woman, trapped in a land where cruel men decided over her body. She felt as a dead soul inside a warm body. Little did she know something worse was even possible.

She was still full of life. She had been brave when The Hound came to her bedroom the night Stannis Baratheon raged war outside the castle. She had been brave when she tried to strip in front of Tyrion Lannister after they made her marry him because even him was better than her father’s murder. She had been brave too when she ran away as Joffrey died.

She almost had felt happy too when she found herself back at Winterfell dressed in white. One would have had to be blind not to see the truth behind that smile and the shine in those eyes—that Ramsay Bolton was a wicked man or at least some part of him was very, terribly dark, was an understatement. Still, Sansa thought she had the right cards to play, she was, after all, the last Stark alive. She had been willing to have him every night in her bed chambers despite the distrust she felt, to perhaps give him a son if only it meant to regain Winterfell and be home again.

As she had caressed the soft fabric of her gown, she had willingly forgotten the little things he had done until then to prove to her that he was not a good man. Theon had been an enormous distraction, though the blame was on her, she had ignored what Ramsay had done to Theon because she wanted to make him suffer for what he had done to her brother, she should’ve known to fear a man capable of destroying another one like Ramsay had done to Theon, but she had felt so sure of herself. She had even dared to hope that Ramsay would be good to her, maybe they would grow fond of each other, learn to respect each other, that he would give her the place she was born to take as the Lady of Winterfell.

 _Suffering_ , what a conspicuous word. She had thought she had suffered at King's Landing, always so full of terror because of Joffrey and Cersei and the nightmares too had dragged her almost to insanity, dreaming almost every night of his father's eyes while she begged him to lie, to please beg for mercy. Nothing compared to the night Ramsay fuck her raw. He had hit her when she was tired of screaming in pain, commanding keep going as it was _music to his ears_. He undressed her completely eventually and burned her when she tried to struggle, leaving her limp as he pushed different objects inside of her, always careful, claiming he was eager to have her full of his children. He had hit her, beat her, spit on her, burned her, cut her, raped her over and over, with his own body and other things too, enjoying her suffering and pleads. He had tortured her and then left to enjoy his sleep, satisfied with himself.

When he had left that first time, the sun rising on the horizon, her thighs were covered in blood from the cuts and burns he had given her. He only bruised her arms, but her torso was not that lucky. Ramsay bent her hope repeatedly and raped it in front of Theon each time that came until she ran away. _If Ramsay wins, I'm not going back there alive_ , she had told Jon and she had known this time she would be true to her own words.

When the skies darken upon Winterfell, she remembers every second of her life in King's Landing and what came after it. The nightmares never ended, not until she was in Winterfell, her home, Jon by her side and ‘till this day, some nights she can't find peace.

No one should have the right to judge her. She had replied to lady Lyanna Mormont that she did what she had to do to survive and that is the only truth. She wasn’t strong in body, she never stopped being herself: a lady of Winterfell, fair, feminine, always careful with her attire and her hair, but she was strong in mind and soul, no matter how little was left of her. She was strong as a man and even more.

Jon stood in front of her. He willed himself not to look away, holding her icy eyes. She knew that in that moment he was not seeing Sansa, not that little girl who wanted nothing more than to be queen, give the realm an heir and be the lady of a house Stark, to be the pride of Winterfell. All he saw was the pieces left of _her_ and a much greater part of what she once saw in Cersei. _Love no one but your children_ , she had told her. She now understood, kind of, because the pain in her body –not only the one she would feel in her heart as she remembered vividly every night she had had to spent by Ramsay’s side, but the one Jon was trying not to see now that she had stripped bare in front of him, letting him witness each scarred part–; that pain was the one which told her that she could not ever bring a son to this world. She didn’t want to, she couldn’t.

“My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.”

“Sansa…”

“Look at me, Jon. Look at me.”

He didn’t, not immediately. His hands turned to fists and he grimaced slightly, but then his eyes fell. She knew by heart what he was going to find: the cuts around her breasts, the skin burned in her hips, her thighs, her very core.

Bran was not Bran anymore, he had other duties, and Arya was a free soul, she wanted to be on the battlefield, at the front, fighting for her house.

Now the Queen of Dragons was summoning him and they both knew why: a new war was to come. Even if he didn’t want to leave, there was nothing he could do because his honor was always first. She suspected he loved her too. In the rush of a moment, Jon had suggested it for her to take a husband and rule the North, the King in the North must always be in the North, he had whispered. She knew those words came from the bannermen, the lords of the North. Winterfell needed a lord to command them and Jon had made a mistake by bending the knee to Daenerys. But she was not willing to give her birth right to another man.

He once told her he would protect her, she had answered that he couldn’t, no one could protect anyone. She knew he had only considered the proposal so that she could be safe by a man's side. She wishes he hadn't promised to protect her. There are no heroes; in life, the monsters win. She _hoped_ Jon's fear didn't turn him into a monster too.

“I have the body of a woman, but the scars of a man. I will not be wed to some lord so he can cast me aside in my own home. Not again.”

He looked directly into her eyes and then walked the distance between them. She was trembling, she was cold and full of rage. He picked up the coat by her feet and covered her body with it, soon enough tenderly kissing her forehead. He was trembling too, maybe he felt rage too. His arms surrounded her with a strength that she only remembered in the embrace of her father. She wanted to cry, but there were no more tears in her.

“You won’t, never again. I will protect you, Sansa.”

He had kept his word after returning home, even when those things came, the White Walkers, and he almost perished trying to keep Arya, Bran and Sansa safe. But things were different now, she knew that not even things with Daenerys were right now that he was a true born Targaryen. _No one can protect anyone_. Yet, she melted against him slowly, wanting to believe in him just for those seconds, sniffing the leather of his clothes, feeling his strong hand against her left cheek as she pressed her right to his while his beard tickled her. She wished life had been different, she wished she had been different. Jon deserved better and so did she.

Maybe in another life, if she dared to admit it even to herself, she would turn her face to touch his lips with her own, because even if they had been brothers, life had changed them beyond repair and he had become her grates strength and her foolish heart had hoped once more. Maybe she would've let her heart beat as fast as it was doing now, relishing in the touch of a man who truly cared about her. Maybe that in that other life she would have been lucky enough to be wed to him, a man who had seen how intelligent she was, who tried to listen to her, who respected her. But not in this life and she was never going to be that stupid little girl who _hoped_ ever again.

He walked away, leaving her to dress again, to be what she had to be: the Lady of Winterfell and Warden of the North.


End file.
